


Gotta Set Limits

by HereLiesBethBoland



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: 2x08, Canon Compliant, Episode Remix, Explicit Language, F/M, Kissing, One Shot, Romance, friends - Freeform, mild make out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 06:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20187988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereLiesBethBoland/pseuds/HereLiesBethBoland
Summary: a little episode remix for Thelma and Louise in which Beth goes with Rio instead of Ruby to the 'hitmans' house to retrieve her stolen money.I do not own these lovely characters or the Good Girls universe in any way shape or form, sadly.





	Gotta Set Limits

“What’s the plan?” she asks as he pulls up across the street from a dilapidated building. He reaches over her to open the glove box and his arm rests on her leg for a second as he grabs his gun. He sits back, gun in hand resting on his lap and looks over at her. 

“What’s it look like?” he says. 

“So we just storm in there guns-a-blazing?” 

“No.” 

Beth stares at him for a second or two, waiting for an elaboration that would never come. 

“Fine, don't tell me.” she says as she reaches into her purse for her own piece. 

A ghost of a smile quirks at the side of Rio’s mouth and she just catches it as they exit his car. She’s walking behind him and after seeing him tuck his gun in the waistband of his pants, she does the same. The metal feels cold and foreign against her skin, and she doesn’t know why, but suddenly she’s comparing it to his touch which is the exact opposite; warm and familiar. 

And it really shouldn’t be. 

He looks back at her. “You ready?” 

“What am I supposed to do?” 

“Just be cool. Follow my lead.”

Beth touches the gun at her back and Rio clocks the movement. “Don’t draw that unless you need it.” 

As they ascend the steps to the second floor where the “hit men” live, Rio is so casual it's comical, and Beth is taking deep breaths in and out trying to match his vibe. She realizes it's not working when he stops on the stairwell so abruptly she runs into his back. 

“Wha… what are you doing?” He’s looking down at her and she sees his jaw tick. “What?!” 

“BE COOL.” 

“I AM.” 

“Why you breathin’ so loud?” 

“What are you talking about I’m just breathing normally,” she says but she’s grateful for the dim lighting because she’s certain her face is turning red. 

“Look, I’m just gonna talk to them. Stop trippin’.” 

“What happens if they refuse to give the money back?”

He smiles at her and its borderline condescending. “They ain’t gonna refuse, trust me.” 

They arrive at the apartment and Rio knocks softly with one knuckle. There’s no answer and so he knocks a little louder. Beth’s heart is beating out of her chest; not because she’s afraid of the little peckers that stole her money, but because of Rio. What she knows he’s capable of. 

Beth knows first hand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of one of Rio’s “little talks”. And the fact that she was standing there with him, on his side… What did this mean? What was she condoning? 

She really wanted her fucking money back, though. 

The door swings open and the mousier-looking kid, _ T.J? P.J? _ is standing there with a dumb look on his face. A huge cloud of skunk-smelling smoke hits them and Beth bites her tongue and swallows hard to avoid coughing. 

“What the fuck?” he says and she sees Rio tilt his head in her periphery. 

“Heard you got somethin’ of mine,” Rio says conversationally. 

The kid looks at Beth and she sees when it dawns on his stoned brain just who is standing at his door. He starts shutting it, panic lighting up his eyes.

Quick as a cat, Rio’s foot easily blocks the door from shutting more than an inch. “Yo, that’s rude. Ain’t you gonna invite us in?” 

“We didn’t know it was your money! And me and my boy we was never gonna do nothin’ to you. We just wanted to screw that old dude over,” the kid explains desperately and Beth almost laughs out loud. He’s instantly reduced to a little boy, her suspicions correct.

Still.... 

“Where’s my money you little prick?” Beth asks him, stepping forward and Rio holds his arm out low in a subtle attempt to stop her. 

“You said we could have a car,” the kid shoots back. 

Rio looks at Beth unamused, then turns back to the kid. “Nah, that ain’t happenin’,” he says. 

“Then we’re gonna rat your husband out about the hit.” Beth rolls her eyes and Rio chuckles. 

“It look like she cares about that?” he asks. The kid looks at her and she shrugs. 

“Now. You gonna let us in and we’re gonna wait while you collect all our money, got it?” Rio says calmly. 

He opens the door all the way and moves to the side to let them in. 

“Anyone else here?” Rio asks and he shakes his head ‘no’. 

Beth and Rio move deeper into the apartment, Beth’s nose wrinkling up at the disgusting state of it; beer bottles, trash, and huge colorful bongs littered every surface. 

_ Who needs that many bongs? _She thinks 

“Wait here. I’ll get the money.” the kid says and then he's disappearing down a hallway.

Rio glances at Beth and raises his eyebrows as if to say “See” and she rolls her eyes and starts moving around the apartment, nervous energy coming off of her in waves. 

Something doesn’t feel right. She wanders over to the hallway and peaks down it, listening for anything. 

“I think he’s trying to pull something shady,” she whispers to Rio and just then she sees his eyes focus behind her and he’s reaching for his gun. Beth whips around to see a sucked up teenage girl in her underwear, pointing a gun at her. 

“Don’t move, bitch.” Beth swallows audibly and holds her arms out, fingers spread in a surrender pose. 

“I just want my money,” Beth says quietly. 

“Well you can’t have it,” the girl replies but Beth sees her hands shaking. 

The kid comes out then, carrying a bunch of duffle bags. His eyes go wide when he sees what’s happening. 

“What are you doing, Toni!?” he squeaks out. 

“I’m not letting them take our money, PJ! You may be the biggest pussy ever but I’m not,” the girl says, looking over at him. 

PJ replies in an unnecessarily hushed tone, “Do you know who that guy is?” 

“I don’t care who he is!” she barks out. 

“Well you should. He’s probably gonna kill us now,” his eyes are shifting from the girl to Rio, and he looks terrified.

Rightfully so, Beth thinks.

She chances a glance back at Rio and he looks bored, frankly; hands stuffed in his hoodie.

“Can we move this along? I got places to be,” he says. 

The girl seems to come back to herself at the sound of Rio’s voice and she raises the gun up higher and walks closer to Beth, aiming it at her head. Beth moves backwards until her knees hit the coffee table. 

“Sit,” Toni says. 

Beth looks behind her and cringes at the ashtray and various fast food trash laying there. “Ew. Where?” she asks

“Sit down!” the girl shouts. 

Beth jumps a bit and then gingerly swipes her hand across the filthy table clearing herself a spot. After she sits, she looks at the girl in the eye- giving her the same look she gives Jane when she’s being sassy. 

Toni is looking at Beth but talking to Rio when she speaks. “I don’t know who you are but you can’t take this money. If you try, your bitch gets a bullet to the brain.” 

Rio huffs out. “First of all, she ain’t my bitch. And second- you ain’t gonna pull the trigger. Why don’t you just put the gun down and let us be on our way,” he says calmly. 

The kid is inching the duffle bags, three of them to be exact, over to Rio. Beth is trying to keep Toni’s attention by keeping her eyes on her, but suddenly she notices the kid’s movement and shoves the gun up against Beth’s temple. 

“PJ, you better drop those bags you worthless loser. I’m serious. I will kill this nice lady right in your apartment. I need that money!” 

Up until this point, Beth hasn’t been too worried; the girl not seeming too confident in what she was claiming she would do. But now with the gun actually touching her? She was starting to panic just a bit. 

She takes a deep breath and thinks about a conversation she had with Rio not too long ago. 

_ If someone’s got a gun to your head, what do you do? _

_ Stay calm? _

_ Yeah. and ? _

_ Try and distract them. _

_ That’s it. If you can get them to doubt themselves for a split second you got enough time to knock the weapon out of their hand. _

_ Seems like quite a risk. _

_ Trust me. It works. _

She looks at him and he smiles slightly, like he’s reading her mind. He nods just a fraction and Beth clears her throat, getting her bearings. She turns her attention back to the girl. 

“Hey, Hi.” she says and the girl squints in irritation at her. 

“You.. ah..do you live here with these guys?” 

“Yeah, why?” 

“I just..,” she huffs, “It's kind of embarrassing that you let this apartment get so trashed.” 

“What?” the girl is genuinely thrown off. She readjusts the gun and pushes it harder into Beth’s head. Beth’s heart rate spikes and she wills it to normalize. 

“You're the woman of the house, right? What kind of woman allows their home to look this way? And also, do you own pants?” 

Toni looks dumbfounded and Beth makes her move, knocking her wrist, and shoving her skinny ass onto the ground. She scrambles to get the gun that fell onto the coffee table, grabbing it and pointing it down at her. 

She walks over to the duffle bags, gathering them up and walking over to Rio. He lifts two of the bags off her shoulders and they casually walk out, leaving the two kids staring after them. 

They get a few odd looks from the junkies littering the hallways but they are too busy looking at each other to notice. 

“Nice job, mama.” 

“You think?” 

“Yea, don’t go gettin’ a big head over it.” 

Beth feels high. Well she thinks she does. She’s never actually been high but she can imagine maybe it feels something like this? Because she feels like she could take on anything in this moment. And yea, ok. What had transpired would have made a great episode of World’s Dumbest Criminals, but still. 

She got her money back and it feels great. 

When they pull onto her street, she sees Dean’s car in the driveway and visibly deflates, recalling the state she left him in and not looking forward to dealing with it again tonight. 

_ Buzzkill. _

Rio parks a few houses down and flicks off his lights. Quiet music still plays after he shuts off the engine, and he taps his thumbs on the steering wheel to the soft beats. Beth has no desire to leave his car, but she also has no reason to stay. 

“So,” she starts. 

He looks over at her, eyes hooded and relaxed. “So.” 

“That was… fun,” she laughs out. 

“Oh yea?” 

“Mmhmm,”she feels powerful, her attraction to him sliced open and pouring out of her.

His eyes seem to map her face, looking all over it. Like he’s trying to know her more- learn her. Emma does the same thing… Beth attributing it to her having an ‘old soul’. And that makes sense, she thinks- with Rio. 

“You a boss bitch,” he says quietly, his tongue sweeping back and forth across his bottom lip. 

She watches the movement, heat pooling in her belly. 

“You’re a pretty great teacher,” she says and she can’t resist reaching out and swiping her thumb over his full bottom lip. His tongue grazes it and she does it again, her breath coming faster. Rio catches her thumb in his teeth, then kisses it softly- eyes never leaving hers. 

He bites the fleshy part of her hand beneath her thumb, his hand having taken hold of hers, cradling it. He kisses her wrist then and her hand flattens against his face, his laying on top of it. He pulls her closer, her hand smoothing its way across the back of his soft hair, his lips caressing the inside of her elbow as her arms moves to curl around his neck. Beth’s side is pushed against the center console and he’s trying to pull her onto him. 

“Com’ere,” he says. 

“I can’t fit,” they are face to face and Beth can smell mint tea on his breath. She wants to kiss him _ so badly _ but the rational part of her brain has unfortunately reared its ugly head. What was she doing? They were in his _ car _, for Pete’s sake. 

And then Rio is pushing her back into the passenger seat and crawling on top of her, simultaneously moving the seat down and back. Its taking a bit, and he just kind of perches on her awkwardly as the seat moves back at a snail's pace. 

He buries his face in her neck and starts laughing at what she can only assume is the look on her face; the sound of it so sweet and boyish, Beth thinks she might die from the feeling of it bubbling out of him and onto her neck. 

Finally, the seat is lowered and pushed back and _ ok _, she thinks as he spreads out on her, propping himself up on his one elbow and looking down at her. 

“You’re surprisingly heavy,” she says dumbly, adjusting to his weight as he tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and rubs his thumb across her eyebrow. 

He lifts a bit of his weight off of her and dips down to kiss the spot right under her ear. She turns her head to the side giving him better access, and he takes full advantage, licking up her neck. When he starts to suck in a particular spot, Beth moans out softly, her hands going to his head in encouragement. 

“Mm..,” he groans out and then she’s pulling his mouth to hers and he’s happily letting her. They kiss gently at first, exploring one another tentatively but then.. It turns hungry, and they’re biting and sucking - gentleness having left the building. 

He holds her face to him with one hand, fingers tangled in the back of her hair. the other hand is lifting her leg up around his hip as he grinds into her with purpose. Rio slows then and kisses her reverently. Beth lets the feeling of absolute need and passion wash over her, her hips starting to move against his, her hands coming to his lower back and pressing him in closer. 

“_ Damn _ Elizabeth,” he says against her mouth, and the sound of her name on his lips reaches somewhere deep in her and squeezes. He pulls back a bit and looks at her.“So pretty,” he says as he leans back in and bites her bottom lip softly. 

His subtle answering movements against her core are more than enough to start a blazing inferno inside her- But… they were in his car, and Beth would just rather not be. She brings one of her hands up and flattens it on his chest, pushing him up a bit. 

She looks into his eyes, blinking rapidly and momentarily struck dumb by his face.

He looks wrecked. 

“You have anywhere to be tonight?” she asks him. He shakes his head and drops to his knees on the floorboard at her feet. He rests his forearms on her legs as she sits up. 

“Why what’s goin through your head?” 

Beth looks at him kneeling at her feet, arms casually draped over her and she wonders when they became so comfortable around one another. 

“I was thinking we could move this into my room.” 

“What about Car-man?” he asks. 

“What about him?” Rio smirks and kisses her knee before squeezing it and gracefully moving back to the driver’s seat. 

“Maybe you should deal with that first,” he says, eyes focused in front of him now.. Walls officially raised. 

“What do you mean?” she asks. 

“I mean, your husband is a loose cannon and a rotten egg.” 

Beth chews her lip, considering. She knows he’s right, she just has no idea what to do. 

“I’m afraid to put the kids through a divorce. And also, he may be more of a problem if I try to divorce him.” 

“So what then? You just stay with him? You don’t think that’s bad for your kids?” 

Beth immediately bristles when he brings up her children. “That’s… I am doing what I think is best for them. I don’t know,” she sighs defeatedly, any fight in her passing by in lieu of a need to be honest with herself for once. 

“I don’t love him anymore,” she says. 

“Obviously,” he deadpans, looking at her. “Come on. I’ll help you with the bags.” He moves to get out of the car but she stops him with a hand on his arm. 

“It’s ok. I got it,” she says. “Just, watch my back as I walk to my house?” 

He nods and shuts his door. Beth gets out and opens the backseat, unzipping one of the bags and pulling out a stack of cash. She sets it on the passenger seat. “Thanks for your help,” she says as she picks up the duffles, adjusting them onto her shoulders. 

“Anytime, Ma.” 

“Really?” she asks surprised. 

“Yeah. That’s what partners are for, right?” 

She nods and waves goodbye, making her way to her house. She gets about twenty feet before stopping, dropping the bags on the sidewalk and walking back to his car. He’s watching her curiously through the lowered driver’s window. 

When she gets back there, Beth opens his door and leans in, hand pushing against his headrest. She kisses him sweetly, her tongue slipping in just enough to pull a moan from the back of his throat, and when she pulls away, he’s grabbing her head and pulling her back in. Rio kisses her hard, taking control and having the last word, as it were. He lets her go and she all but stumbles, walking backwards a few steps and rubbing her lip with her finger. He watches her, head tilting in contemplation til she turns, grabs her bags and disappears into the night. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hi so a few disclaimers: 
> 
> 1.) writing these one shots has been helping me practice and feel comfortable with the more complex plots of my multi chapters- i am definitely still working on those and will post an update to Heartsound soon. 
> 
> bear with me! sheepish**
> 
> 2.) I ignored some details from the ep... mostly because Im lazy. shrugs*
> 
> 3.) the tagging thing is super confusing to me so if anyone notices any that you think I should have marked, please let me know, thank yOU!


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